Sooner or later, she'd have to sleep. But not tonight. What if he came to her to comfort her? What if, after all these years, she would awaken to remember more than his eyes? What if, as he held her within the strength of his arms, she looked at his face and saw Nate Hodges?
The softly rhythmical cadence of the surf as it swept over the shore lulled Cyn's ravaged nerves like the sweetest lullaby. Looking out at the ocean, she watched as wave after gentle wave covered the beach, then retreated, only to repeat the process, again and again.
Drawn by the night, the hypnotic lure of the ocean, the smell of the water and beach, the big, yellow moon and the romantic music coming from inside the house, Cyn stepped outside. The wind chilled her for a moment, then her body adjusted as she walked to the edge of the patio and took a step down. Just as she reached the final step, her bare feet encountering the sand, she saw him.
He was at least twenty feet away, standing alone on the beach. Noticing that he'd changed into cutoff jeans and a clean shirt, and the end of his short ponytail appeared damp, Cyn assumed he had returned home to bathe. Where was home for him? Surely, somewhere close by.
Had he, too, tried unsuccessfully to sleep? Somehow she knew why he had come back, why he was on the beach taking a late-night stroll. He was seeking sanctuary from the demons that plagued him, and he was coming to her for the peace that could be found only in love. At the thought, she shuddered, wondering how on earth she knew that Nate Hodges was haunted by the past, that he was lonely and hurting, and in desperate need of her comforting arms. How could she possibly know such things about a total stranger?
He walked toward her, each step slow and deliberately measured, as if he were wary of her. She could feel his uncertainty, so strong was his apprehension. This big, dark and dangerous man was afraid of her. For some reason, he didn't want to be here right now, lured into coming to her as surely as some force beyond her understanding had guided her outside to wait for him.
Mesmerized, Cyn watched him approach. So tall. So big. So overwhelmingly male. Her mind told her to run, to escape the predatory look in his eyes, but her heart told her to open her arms to him, to take him into her comforting embrace and give him sanctuary. Cyn shivered with anxiety and with a need she didn't want to admit was sweeping her away, near the point of no return.
Nate moved closer, his gaze taking in every inch of her with undisguised hunger. So small and soft and alluring, she couldn't be real, he told himself. But she was. She was as real as the star-laden sky, the ancient ocean and the granules of sand beneath his feet. And she was his woman. The woman he'd dreamed about since he'd been eighteen. No matter how badly he wanted to deny it, he couldn't. A man whose life often depended on gut-level instincts, he knew, deep in his soul, that Cynthia Porter was the brown-eyed lover from his dreams, the woman destined to be his, the woman Ian Ryker would seek out and destroy.
And he knew he had no right to be here, on her beach, his soul reaching out for hers. Getting close to this woman would mean trouble for both of them.
Her waist-length blond hair hung in disarrayed waves, the ends slightly moist as if she'd recently bathed. Her femininely round body was encased in aqua silk, the material as blue-green as the ocean and just as fluid where it clung to her curves.
He took a step forward, then waited. He could see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, as if her breathing had become labored. He took another step. She stood, unmoving. Her lips parted, but she didn't speak. His next step put his body within inches of hers.
He looked into her eyes. The sight that met his gaze was like a welcome home, so familiar was the rich brown warmth.
Cyn couldn't move. She stood, transfixed, her gaze mating with his, the experience unbelievably erotic, as if they had often exchanged this visual love play many times while their bodies joined in life's most primeval dance.
Finally, he broke eye contact as he glanced downward at her breasts, her waist, her hips and legs. Cyn felt his gaze as it moved over her, making her nipples harden with desire, her knees weaken with longing and her femininity moisten with passion.
She had never known such raw, primitive feelings. This man, this big, savage beast of a man, made her long for things she had never experienced—except in her dreams.
Nate reached out, running the back of his fingers across Cyn's cheek. When she moaned, softly, sweetly, he felt his whole body tighten with arousal. God, he had never wanted anything so badly.
She leaned her face into his caressing hand. Suddenly, he shot his fingers into her hair, grasping a thick handful. She moaned again, tilting her head backward, arching her neck.
"You shouldn't be out here," he told her. "You shouldn't have been waiting for me."
"What... what makes you think I... I was waiting for you?" she asked as she felt him loosen his tenacious grip on her hair, allowing his fingers to cup her scalp. "After what happened tonight, I couldn't sleep. That's why I'm out here."
"You knew I'd be back." His moss-green eyes, eyes so dark a green they appeared black, held her with their mesmerizing power.
"Where...where did you go, after you followed me here?"
"I went home. Like you, I've been trying to sleep and couldn't."
"Home? Where's home?"
"Didn't you know that I'm your neighbor? I bought the old house across the road." Using his gentle hold on her head, he brought her closer to him. Their bodies touched. Nate groaned when her soft breasts grazed his chest. Even through their clothes, he could feel her, his body reacting in a natural masculine fashion.
Cyn sucked in a deep breath, her head feeling light and slightly swimmy. "You bought Miss Carstairs's old place?" Dear God in heaven, Nate Hodges, the living, breathing embodiment of a ruthless warrior, was living in the old co-quina house, built on the grounds where the Spanish mission had stood. Miss Carstairs had sworn that the storage rooms had been part of that original mission. And she had told Cyn the legend, time and again, of the ancient warrior and his Indian maiden whose spirits were doomed to wander this earth until a new warrior and his mate fulfilled the prophecy.
"The realtor told me that the owners didn't use this cottage in the winter months." Nate let his other hand roam downward, from Cyn's shoulder, over her arm, inward to her waist.
"It's spring," she whispered.
"You shouldn't be here," he said. "No one should be here. I need to be left alone."
"You've been alone for far too long." She wasn't sure how she knew that Nate Hodges was the loneliest man she'd ever met, that he'd spent a lifetime without the warmth of sharing. She just knew. Instinctively, she felt his loneliness, his pain. When he grabbed her hip and shoved her body into his, she didn't resist.
"Why now, Brown Eyes? Why now?" He took her mouth with the greed of a man starving, his lips feasting on the sweet surrender he found. It was just as he knew it would be, the feelings erupting from within him somehow familiar and yet more devastating than any he'd ever known.
She accepted the hard, relentless thrust of his tongue, the bruising force of his lips. No one had ever kissed her like this, no man had ever aroused such unrestrained longings within her. She couldn't understand why, but the very savagery of his lips on hers, his big hands raking her body, brought back memories of their wild matings. Memories from her dreams of him? she wondered, and then ceased to think at all.
She knew he'd opened her robe when the cool night air hit her chest a second before he covered her breast with his hand.